hour or more for several consecutive days
Galen said to me:

"You are almost well enough to be about, but not quite. If you go back to
your habitual hours of sleep you will fret and fidget indoors, and you are
not yet sufficiently recovered to resume your normal life. You need fresh
air. I have considered what is best and what is possible. I have talked
with your friend Opsitius. Through him I have arranged for you to have
short outings in this manner. On fair days if you feel like going out you
may call for your litter. In it you must keep the panels closed and the
curtains drawn. Agathemer will give your bearers directions. Nemestronia
has offered you the use of her lower garden. You are to have it all to
yourself, whenever you want it, as long as my directions to Agathemer
permit you to remain in it; and you need not remain a moment unless you
enjoy being there."

I understood without asking any questions. Nemestronia's palace was one of
the most desirable, magnificent and spacious abodes in Rome. Her father,
who had been accustomed to say that he was too great a man to have to live
in a fashionable neighborhood, that any neighborhood in which he settled
would thereby become fashionable, had bought a very generous plot of land
nearly on the crest of the Viminal Hill and had there built himself a
dwelling which was at once noted among the dozen finest private dwellings
in the Eternal City. In one respect it was preeminent. From its lofty
position it had, down the slope of the hill, a wide view over the city and
this view was unobstructed, for below his palace Nemestronius had had laid
out six separate gardens, two large and four small. Next the house the
ground fell away so sharply that he had been able to create a terraced
garden, the only private terraced garden in Rome, extending across the
entire rear of his palace and with three terraces, from the uppermost of
which the view was almost as good as from the upper windows of the
mansion. Below this, each extending along but half the length of the
terraces, was a grass-garden, where it was possible to play ball-games, it
being a mere expanse of sward shut in by high walls covered with flowering
vines; and a formal garden, in the fashionable style. Below the grass-
garden was one of similar size, all flower-beds, to supply roses, lilies,
violets and other staple blossoms for his banqueting-hall, below the
formal garden was one called the wild-garden or shrubbery-garde